Officials at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital in Virginia Beach, Virginia have applied to the Virginia Department of Health for a Certificate of Public Need to add 14 medical/surgical inpatient beds.
The $35-million project calls for a two-story vertical expansion on top of an existing patient tower. Part of the resulting space will be shelled for future uses to be determined, but there are economies of scale in adding two floors now. In keeping with the 70/30 partnership of Sentara and Bon Secours, nine licensed beds will come from other Sentara hospitals and five from Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
Sentara Princess Anne Hospital opened in August 2011 with 160 beds. From January through May of this year, the hospital had a medical/surgical occupancy rate of more than 88 percent. This exceeds the state’s recommended occupancy rate of 80 percent. If observation patients and bedded outpatients occupying inpatient beds are included, the rate climbs past 95 percent, which can create access issues when patients need to be admitted. The transferred beds will bring the total to 174.
